President Ramaphosa had vowed early on to seize land from white farmers without compensation. "The expropriation of land without compensation is envisaged as one of the measures that we will use to accelerate redistribution of land to black South Africans,” he had declared.

This is Socialism pure and simple. They are about to take away property from the wealth creators to the wealth eaters. The result will always be the same - economic collapse. S Africa has rich mineral resources and should be a prosperous country.

President Ramaphosa had vowed early on to seize land from white farmers without compensation. "The expropriation of land without compensation is envisaged as one of the measures that we will use to accelerate redistribution of land to black South Africans,” he had declared.

This is Socialism pure and simple. They are about to take away property from the wealth creators to the wealth eaters. The result will always be the same - economic collapse. S Africa has rich mineral resources and should be a prosperous country.

Or people that actually have skin in the game. Which of course is the problem with Socialism in that no one has skin in the game except the skimmers at the top.

“"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros

President Ramaphosa had vowed early on to seize land from white farmers without compensation. "The expropriation of land without compensation is envisaged as one of the measures that we will use to accelerate redistribution of land to black South Africans,” he had declared.

No Cassowary; it is straight out theft.

Local blacks complain that the land was originally taken from them by whites anyhow. Without taking into consideration that the colonisers who may have done so 2 or 3 centuries ago are not the same crowd of whites as the ones who own the land now.

Theft, which violates the Mosaic 7th commandment moved by envy, one of the 7 deadly sins. It was around long before Socialism was ever conceived.

President Ramaphosa had vowed early on to seize land from white farmers without compensation. "The expropriation of land without compensation is envisaged as one of the measures that we will use to accelerate redistribution of land to black South Africans,” he had declared.

No Cassowary; it is straight out theft.

Local blacks complain that the land was originally taken from them by whites anyhow. Without taking into consideration that the colonisers who may have done so 2 or 3 centuries ago are not the same crowd of whites as the ones who own the land now.

Theft, which violates the Mosaic 7th commandment moved by envy, one of the 7 deadly sins. It was around long before Socialism was ever conceived.

I was for a while in South Africa and I was then told by an Afrikaner friend that there weren't any Bantu peoples in the present day Cape Province when the Dutch started settling it. The only indigenous people there were the so called Bushmen, who didn't own land nor practiced agriculture. By then the Bantu were still north of the Vaal river.

As such the White settlers took no land from anyone, and the present day Bantu South Africans have no right whatsoever to any of that land. And since no Whites could own land in any of the apartheid time Bantustans, I'm quite sure that there will be enough land in South Africa to satisfy any Blacks wishing to dedicate themselves to agriculture.

I was for a while in South Africa and I was then told by an Afrikaner friend that there weren't any Bantu peoples in the present day Cape Province when the Dutch started settling it. The only indigenous people there were the so called Bushmen, who didn't own land nor practiced agriculture. By then the Bantu were still north of the Vaal river.

As such the White settlers took no land from anyone, and the present day Bantu South Africans have no right whatsoever to any of that land. And since no Whites could own land in any of the apartheid time Bantustans, I'm quite sure that there will be enough land in South Africa to satisfy any Blacks wishing to dedicate themselves to agriculture.

Thanks for sharing your first hand South Africa experience with us Sertorio.

To my knowledge your Afrikaner informant is absolutely correct about Cape Colony not having a "bantu" (conventional negro) before the Dutch arrived; except for one small detail. The indigenous inhabitants of that part of present-day South Africa were known as Hottentots - not Bushmen - and unlike the Bushmen further north in the Kalahari Desert who were/are hunter/gatherer types (like our Australian aborigines) the Hottentot were semi-nomadic herdsmen who lived off their cattle. Their home was the open grasslands on the high plateau that occupies most ofm South Africa's interior known as the Karoo.

However, as the Hottentot and the Bushmen are of the same racial group (distinct from the negroes) for Afrikaner informant's confusion of identities is perhaps understandable.

Despite the fact that the millions of negroes resident in Cape Colony have no ancestral tribal roots there, groups of them, even some living on the edge of Cape Town, are attempting to lodge bogus claims to land there on the spurious basis of alleged ancestral ownership. Instead of having backbone and telling them "no, the land is not rightfully yours to claim" ; Ramposa, the current ANC government leader supported by a so-called "radical" (i.e.vengeful) faction within his own party, has demonstrated his willingness to indulge them in their quest.

You call that "socialist redistribution" cassowary but I do not see it that way at all. I see no such organised agenda but rather the case of a spineless, opportunist, little piece of political lowlife attempting to buy votes at the expense of somebody else - not the same!

I have had a lifetime of experience and believe me: I would far rather deal with an honest and honourable socialist that a dishonest and dishonourable capitalist - otherwise known as a crook!

Countries fortunate enough to have some degree of agricultural self-sufficiency have a moral obligation to preserve productive farmland. Transferring title to land from folks who know how to properly manage it to folks with neither the skill nor the inclination to farm is gross stupidity, whether it be in the name of socialism, capitalism, or whatever.

Countries fortunate enough to have some degree of agricultural self-sufficiency have a moral obligation to preserve productive farmland. Transferring title to land from folks who know how to properly manage it to folks with neither the skill nor the inclination to farm is gross stupidity, whether it be in the name of socialism, capitalism, or whatever.

On the other hand, maybe White farmers in South Africa might find it worthwhile giving technical assistance to Black farmers, in land not already being used by the White farmers, in order to improve food self-sufficiency and to keep some of the Blacks out of the cities where they tend to be non-productive.

Countries fortunate enough to have some degree of agricultural self-sufficiency have a moral obligation to preserve productive farmland. Transferring title to land from folks who know how to properly manage it to folks with neither the skill nor the inclination to farm is gross stupidity, whether it be in the name of socialism, capitalism, or whatever.

On the other hand, maybe White farmers in South Africa might find it worthwhile giving technical assistance to Black farmers, in land not already being used by the White farmers, in order to improve food self-sufficiency and to keep some of the Blacks out of the cities where they tend to be non-productive.

My prediction is that those who were non-productive in the cities will also be non-productive as farmers.

President Ramaphosa had vowed early on to seize land from white farmers without compensation. "The expropriation of land without compensation is envisaged as one of the measures that we will use to accelerate redistribution of land to black South Africans,” he had declared.

No Cassowary; it is straight out theft.

Local blacks complain that the land was originally taken from them by whites anyhow. Without taking into consideration that the colonisers who may have done so 2 or 3 centuries ago are not the same crowd of whites as the ones who own the land now.

Theft, which violates the Mosaic 7th commandment moved by envy, one of the 7 deadly sins. It was around long before Socialism was ever conceived.

I always regarded Socialism as theft. Socialists seek to take from those who have more to give to those who have less. It preys on people's envy - one of the 7 deadly sins. Stalin and Mao did the same. The ANC always have had a Communist element that wanted the wealth of the more successful who happened to be White in this case. Had they been black, the same thing would have happened. Being white simply gave them an excuse to steal.

I always regarded Socialism as theft. Socialists seek to take from those who have more to give to those who have less. It preys on people's envy - one of the 7 deadly sins. Stalin and Mao did the same. The ANC always have had a Communist element that wanted the wealth of the more successful who happened to be White in this case. Had they been black, the same thing would have happened. Being white simply gave them an excuse to steal.

No comparison!

In this case the proposal is not to take land from the peasants and turn them into state owned collective farms (that was quite reprehensible of Stalin) but to take from someone in order to give to someone else in private ownership. If only they were going to pay the current owners just compensation then it would be valid agrarian reform, not socialism as you routinely misdefine it.

We had agrarian reform in 19th century Australia when grazing land often illegally appropriated by our "squatters" (graziers, sheep ranchers) was taken from them by our colonial government and subdivided into smaller landholdings and sold off to aspiring family farmers. The result was no drop in fine wool production but the blossinging of new farming industries including (significantly) wheat production; which by the end of the 19th century had put this country on the map as a globally important wheat exporter.

The trouble was that the squatters had a fixed idea about what the land could be used for. The new generation of settler-farmers who superseded them had more open minds about land usage and new innovative ideas about what the land could produce.